Micah 3/4: Micah 4:1-5:15 Hey Friends; Let's Start with Prayer This

1 Micah 3/4: Micah 4:1-5:15 Hey friends; let’s start with Prayer this morning! Prayer: Introduction: Well all, we’re back in Micah--our second to last look at this oldest Minor Prophet to the Southern Kingdom. We’re looking at chapters 4 and 5 of Micah today, and I think it will launch us into a discussion on what it means to not only have our lives directed by a vision of the world to come, but how we live with other people of faith until that world arrives. And again, I just want to make this clear: As we talk about Israel, now, we’re talking about Judah. The Northern Kingdom has been exiled, destroyed, all that’s left is the remnant, the scrap, of Judah. Context: “Ultimate Blessing” If you were around last week, we noted that today’s chapters, 4 and 5, form a section we called a “promise of ultimate blessing,” a section that talked about Israel’s far future, on the other side of an exile that makes no sense at the time Micah predicts it: an exile to Babylon, which is rubble when Micah speaks. We can think of Micah as having two real parts, two chunks, 2 each of which cycle through passages of judgment and condemnation, calls for repentance, and then settle into promises of a future that’s good, in which all that is condemned has been replaced by faithfulness and the blessing of God that follows it. Today’s chapters form the end of one of these cycles; it’s meant to communicate Hope to Israel, and that’s what we’ll see...if we look close. What we see, as we read what Micah says, is that everything Micah says to Jerusalem, which was almost all that was left unscathed of Judah, which itself was all that was left of God’s People Israel, everything Micah says to them is said to them as they are fearful, anxious, paying tribute to Assyria, wondering if they’ll survive, even as they mourn thousands of their own slaughtered by Assyria. This is their state of mind under Micah’s preaching. And those few with relative power in this tiny little area are doing all they can to shore up more and more for themselves, even as those without are just being blown about by whatever their own leaders want to do to them. Understanding: “The Last Days” And what Micah prophesies is not only a condemnation of Jerusalem and Judah as it is right now, which we saw last week--a condemnation, in fact, that was heard, and responded to with repentance, and so Judah was saved for 3 another 125 years from Assyrian destruction. Micah doesn’t just point out all their covenant-keeping failures; he also lets them know that their future will be bright, but that future will be far away. When the passage opens with a promise that “in the last days something will happen,” it’s a promise in line with that “Day of the Lord” promise we’ve seen other places: Something that will come at the end of time as we know it. What Micah doesn’t realize is that thing that Paul, 700 years later, was able to put into words: The Day of the Lord, the end of time, wasn’t an “all at once” thing, but dawned in the “ruler from Bethlehem,” the “Messiah’s” birth and life and death and resurrection, and won’t set until his--Jesus’--return. It’s a day that stretches out until Jesus sun-sets it. Here’s what Micah says today: 2 In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. 3 Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, 4 so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4 He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Who Copied Who? (Isaiah) I’m lying, actually. I didn’t just read Micah. I read Isaiah. Isaiah 2:2-4, and it just happens to be exactly the same thing that starts chapter 4 of Micah, which was read to us today. It's the exact same thing. I don’t know what to make of this. We do know that Micah and Isaiah were both at work at the same time; Isaiah for much longer, and much more prolifically. Maybe God gave them both this exact same thing to say to Jerusalem; maybe only one or the other originally said it. Ultimately, this section, this vision, was so important to what God would have to say to His People that he gave it to us twice, whatever the mechanism behind it. And that should cause us to notice it, you know? Isaiah goes from here to talk about how little God’s People ought to trust in the strength and schemings of people, and instead, how they ought to trust in God. Micah instead 5 doubles down on this vision of the future. He says this: 4 Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken. 5 All the nations may walk in the name of their gods, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever. 6 “In that day,” declares the Lord, “I will gather the lame; I will assemble the exiles and those I have brought to grief. 7 I will make the lame my remnant, those driven away a strong nation. The Lord will rule over them in Mount Zion from that day and forever. 8 As for you, watchtower of the flock, stronghold[a] of Daughter Zion, the former dominion will be restored to you; kingship will come to Daughter Jerusalem.” Being That Guy: It’s far easier for us, though, to emphasize the way God, “in the last days” will make the lame and powerless proud to be themselves, rather than ashamed, and bringing that to bear around us now, than it is to talk about living up to a vision of 6 the world in which we don’t “train for war anymore.” I mean, we live in a nation whose existence, if you look at our history, and whose budget, if you look at our cash, exists to learn war, and we live in a world in which many nations do all they can to learn war, train in it, and threaten it, better than the others around them. This isn’t an opinion; this is just fact. And we benefit enormously from that fact, because we are often very insulated from the costs of such training, and benefit from the pay check it gets us. Smoky Row is a mile from an armory, you know? The way we ignore or are oblivious to that is a metaphor for what it’s like for us to live, generally. But I’m so tired of being that guy, you know? That guy who always points out that Christians aren’t supposed to kill people, even if the state tells us to, and that our Christian perspective on everything is supposed to be driven by visions like Micah’s: pictures of the world God promises “in the last days” in which, say, death is dead and we can’t be agents of death, in which we really are called “the children of God” because we are those who “make peace,” as Jesus puts it, in which Revelation’s roaring lion of Judah is, when we see him, a sacrificed lamb, and we obey God, rather than men, and bless those who persecute us, turn the other cheek, and actually try to listen to Jesus. I speak up because, you know, I’m no tax resister, railing 7 against how much of my coin goes to build bombs to threaten the world with. I’ve never been drafted or threatened by it. I continually gnaw at what Micah and Isaiah and others say because if I don’t, I’ll just give in to the pressure to not worry about these things, because life has a lot of worries. And yet: I’ll be judged, James says, more harshly than those who don’t preach, for what I don’t say and what I do. And Micah’s vision here is a controlling vision; a picture of what God will achieve in the world, one that we understand through the lens of Jesus, definitely, but one that should direct our choices now. If I skip it, because it doesn’t seem compelling, I’ll be judged for that. Real Questions? And so I guess I think real questions come out of Micah’s passages and others like it. I don’t think Christians can train for war and say “I am being like Christ.” I don’t think we can play war games. I don’t think it’s good to offer toy guns to our kids, let them make them themselves, or allow our kids to play soldier.

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